Food prep questions

jaxxy00

We have a joint party for my daughters 18th this Saturday and i have a few questions please as to the prep of the food. As there should be about 200 coming there are quite large amounts to be done so any tips/advice would be great.

Ive done a list of things i could do today, then tomorrow, then Saturday.

Questions:-
1) Would it be ok to hard boil the eggs today (for egg mayo sarnie filling also a pasta dish) then peel and make up the fillings tomorrow, ready to use them Saturday?

2) Would plain pasta be ok made today or tomorrow, then cooled and kept in fridge ready to mix in the remaining ingredients on Saturday (or even better tomorrow)? Other ingredients are chopped egg, sliced sausage and sliced gherkins, mixed with mayo/salad cream. Sounds odd i know but daughters friends creation and it is actually really yummy.

3) Would prawns be ok to mix with prawn sauce tomorrow, ready to be used Saturday or would this need to be mixed and used the same day?

4) When is the earliest i could cook the vol-au-vent cases and how would i ensure that they stayed crisp until they were filled on the day?

5) When is the soonest that the following could be cooked and kept fridged or airtight tin etc:- sausage rolls, chicken nuggets, stuffing balls, cocktail sausages, pastry parcels (80 piece pastry platter form iceland with sage and pork wraps, veggie and tomato and basil varieties)?

Havent really searched for anything similar as need to be getting on but knew i could count on people on this board (as always, MSE great place) to help me with answers.

MadCowMan

I always find that if you boil eggs in advance, they go green around the outside of the shells.

I seem to remeber that you can prevent this by rapid cooling of the eggs after you boil them ( use cold water ) , but I might wel be thinking of something else.

jaxxy00

Thanks for the tips, the party starts at 7.30pm. Its being held at a l Social club so theres nowhere to prepare food there. We have been told we can keep trays of food until needed in the room where the beer barrells are kept which is chilled.

MadCowMan

Toxic_Lemon wrote:

Hmmm! I thought that was what caused it in the first place - leaving to cool in water and then not peeling straight away. I can't remember now, either.

I think this requires a Mythbuster style OS experiment.
Hard Boil 2 Eggs.

Allow one to cool in the Pan , Put one on a seperate pan of cold water.

Allow to cool and check for green bits round the yolk.

Pink.

Just to add my tuppenceworth: I read somewhere years ago that the trick to having a nice yellow yolk in hard boiled eggs is to cool the eggs as quickly as possible after cooking. I usually do it under cold running water while I'm peeling them and it seems to work.

Jaxxy, If you wanted to hardboil the eggs tomorrow they will be fine if you keep them in the fridge in their shells.

Pink

Edit: Just found this

MadCowMan

I'm doing my weekly shop on saturday - I may well even have to post pictures in a MrBadExample fashion

joey_2

I have just made egg -mayonnaise - boiled the eggs this morn then covered with freezing cold water, left to cool and there was no green - lovely yellow yolks!

jaxxy00

Thats a great link to how to get the perfect boiled egg Pink-winged, thanks for that.

I love watching mythbusters MadCowMan and its a great idea to try out two before.

Ive just come back on here after having scanned lots of pics for party. (Been in bed this afternoon for a while as been quite ill, real bad timing with all there is to do). We are scanning pics and blowing them up to A4 size and placing them along the walls where food will be served so to give a few giggles We are doing nice pics too though of course.

My scanner keeps playing up now though so hope it doesnt give up on me now :eek:

Back off to do some more.

troll35

Like pink-winged I would cook the eggs and once cooled, store them in the fridge until the day. However, I always crack the shells a bit and plunge them into cold water to cool. The small amount of water that goes between the egg and the shell means the shell won't stick to the egg when you finally peel them.